ABSTRACT
That sentence by Arthur Murphy, part of a rebuke addressed to Voltaire in the Gray’s-Inn Journal in 1753 (No. 140b), is revealing of the increased prestige of Shakespeare in the 1750s and 1760s. The gradual ascendance of praise over blame which was noted in the previous volume1 continued with enthusiasm. In Murphy’s eyes ‘SHAKESPEARE stands at the head of our dramatic writers; perhaps at the head of all, who have figured in that kind in every age and nation’, a verdict which Daniel Webb repeated in 1762 (No. 195). For John Armstrong in 1758 (No. 164), ‘SHAKESPEARE perhaps possessed the greatest compass of genius that ever man did’, while the author of ‘The Poetical Scale’ in that year (No. 167) gave Shakespeare the maximum marks for genius, ahead of all other English poets (second place is shared by Spenser, Milton, Dryden, Swift and Pope). Thomas Francklin, Professor of Greek at Cambridge, and professional defender of Greek tragedy, nevertheless ended his essay on the Greeks with the affirmation that all their virtues were ‘united and surpass’d in the immortal and inimitable Shakespeare’ (No. 180). In Edward Young’s essay on originality Shakespeare was credited with ‘adult genius’, that which ‘comes out of nature’s head…at full growth, and mature’ (No. 179), and if Shakespeare is to be compared with any other writer only Homer will suffice (Nos 139, 140b, 154a, 171, 187, 199).
